As far as the second post goes, I actually kind of agree with him. I also saw it on the front page of the BBC news website first, which seems very strange to me. I work in DC and we have murders here every single week without fail. Few of those deaths even make the front page of the Washington Post, let alone front and center on most major news websites around the world. This is essentially another aspect of hate-crime laws: singling out individuals who commit crimes based on racial/religious/etc. motivations. I am personally very opposed to this, as I think it furthers the notion that we are not all the same in the eyes of the law. A murder is a murder is a murder. The motivations behind a particular murder should not be sufficient grounds to differentiate between a story buried 30 pages deep in a local paper and a story that gets front-page billing on international news websites.
I can certainly see the sensationalism in the notion of an anti-Semitic murder (which was clearly this guy's motivations), but that doesn't change the fact that it's inequitable coverage. There are plenty of murders all over the US every day that are motivated by race, but we Jews are always given extra-special treatment as a result of sensitivity over the Holocaust. I don't see what makes this nutjob any more news-worthy than the other random office shootings we get every month in the US. They are all equally tragic and should be treated the same. My life (Jewish) is no more valuable than my wife's (Christian). I would hope her murder would get as much attention as mine would.
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